A youth flashes his huge blade in the hard-hitting BBC Three documentary (Photo: BBC3)

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Nottingham-born football star Jermaine Jenas has revealed how being robbed at knife-point at the age of 19 caused him to fall out of love with his home city.

The former Forest star, who would go on to play for top Premier League clubs and represent his country, had just left the barber's when he was approached by five young men with knives, demanding he hand over his money and watch.

Although it was a moment Jermaine would never forget, it was over in an instant.

But a reality which is captured in a new BBC3 documentary.

The latest figures reveal knife crime is now an epidemic, with blades carried outside schools at a five-year high and kids as young as eight armed by gangs.

Match of the Day pundit Jermaine, 34, went back to the city and approached a gang of ­balaclava-clad, knife-wielding youths in a ­deserted warehouse.

They have been armed since they were 14. One gang member told Jermaine how close he was to an act of violence.

He said: "Carrying a knife has come from my fear of what ­someone might do to me. So I'll do ­something to them first.

"All you have to do is get a hint of danger and I'll all-out attack. There won't be waiting about to see if this person will attack me first."

Incredibly, another gang member pulls out an enormous meat cleaver from behind his back, boasting to an alarmed Jermaine of how he used it ­during bloody drug feuds.

He also met a teenage knife-user who claimed carrying a ­weapon made him "feel like superman".

He flashes his blade to Jermaine and chillingly tells the dad of three: "The bigger, the better."

Jermaine Jenas hosts the documentary (Photo: BBC3)

The encounters bring back ­disturbing memories for Jermaine.

He recalled: "As I left the ­barber's one day this man came running towards me with a knife in the ­alleyway. Then four more ­appeared behind me.

"I just said 'Take everything' and gave them my money and watch. But I fell out of love with Nottingham for a long time after that."

In 12 months from June 2015 the number of ­stabbings in the city increased from 80 to 99. And the number of 10 to 17-year-olds ­sentenced or cautioned there for ­possessing knives rose from 85 to 98, 15 per cent, from 2015-16.

Nottingham boxer Joshua Bradley, 19, was stabbed in the heart with a ten-inch knife in 2015.

Jailing his killer Richard Johnson, 24, for life, Judge Gregory Dickinson said: "He would still be alive but for the fact when you went out that night you took with you a knife and you were ready and willing to use it."

Jermaine, who was making a BBC Three documentary, Teenage Knife Wars, which features Nottingham Post reporting, said hearing of old school pals getting caught up in violence inspired him to do more to tackle the issue.

He said: "There have always been ­gangland-type areas in Nottingham – but what's really hit me hard is kids as young as eight are now carrying knives to school. That was something I never saw when I was growing up.

"I was getting a number of text messages from friends saying, 'Oh, do you remember so-and-so? He's just got stabbed.'

"I even received one saying a friend I grew up with up had an altercation that involved a knife that he might end up getting in trouble for.

"The police and ­families have got a ­responsibility. These young people are ­feeling trapped. They don't even have somewhere to go to just have fun."

Clinical lead Adam Brooks, of East Midlands Trauma Centre, said: "We're also seeing more severe stab wounds. We've had a few where we've still have the knife in situ."

While Marcellus Baz, of Nottingham's Switch Up charity, said: "We know of incidents where eight-year-old kids have been handed a knife – and some ­occasions when they've used them.

A huge knife featured in the documentary (Photo: BBC3)

"If leaders are doing bad things the ­younger ones will follow. Gangs are getting younger kids to be street soldiers."

Jermaine said: "It's horrifying that kids of eight carry knives. Gangs target them that young because they know they are less likely to be the subject of a stop and search."

The star credits his passion for football and his mum Lynette Sharpe, a single parent, for ­keeping him out of trouble.

He was raised on a council ­estate in the Clifton area. His dad walked out when Jermaine was eight.

Lynette said: "As a parent, to think your child is going to go out and [either end up in prison or dead] is really, really scary to me."

Jermaine said: "When you have a focus in life, like I did, you tend to make the right decisions.

"I found myself in situations when I was a teenager when I would be at a house party and someone would start smoking some weed, and I'd ask for some.

"But then my mate would say: 'No Jermaine, you have a game tomorrow.' My friends and my mum genuinely had my back." The midfielder, who represented England 21 times, said becoming a dad made him reassess the issue faces teens these days.

He said: "Your kids have to learn and go to school. But you can't control who your kids go to school with.

"We live in Hertfordshire now and people think I'm a former footballer and live in a gated house so I can't have those fears – but I do." As part of his research, Jermaine had a tearful encounter with the mum of Jerome Eugene Bergan, 27, who died from a single wound to his chest in 2002.

With tears running down her cheeks, Trish Bergan, now 64, told Jermaine as they put flowers on her son's grave: "I feel so ­heartbroken. When I come up to this cemetery, when I look at my child, I always say: 'Why?'"

Jermaine said: "It was really hard hearing Trish's story, she was such a bubbly, lovely woman.

"Then I went to meet ­youngsters who carry knives on the streets without a care.

"All I could think about was Trish, what ­happened to her and what she had to go through. It made me angry as well as upset.

"It is quite scary really, the fact it can happen to anybody at a blink of an eye.

"Jerome thought he was in the safety of his own area and then he's bleeding on his back door step. That's the reality."

The human costs of knife crime are widespread, as we revealed last month.

Now Jermaine hopes his work with the Aquinas Foundation, which he helped set up in Nottingham and London with his friend Craig Anderson, will ­improve attendance in school, encourage kids' extra-curricular activities and help reduce crime.

Nottingham police said they have a dedicated task force tackling the problem and have launched talks on knife, gun and gang crime for all year six – aged ten and 11 – pupils in city schools.

Jermaine said: "People have to carry on because if you don't the violence wins. We need to keep incentivising our youths to stop this vicious cycle."